


Huddling For Warmth

by WhisperElmwood



Series: To Live As If Whole [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Planet, Bad Korean, Bad Spanish, Gen, Huddling For Warmth, Korean Keith (Voltron), Latino Lance (Voltron), M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Keith, Pre-Slash, Sharing a Bed, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:56:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7699048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperElmwood/pseuds/WhisperElmwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After ridding a planet of it's Galra invaders, Keith and Lance literally have to huddle for warmth. Keith is jealous, Shiro is proud and Pidge gets all nerdy. There may also be mutual pining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Huddling For Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> I genuinely apologise for both the Spanish and the Korean, but no-one offered to help when I put out a call for help with the Spanish, and while I did spend 2.5 years living in Korea, my Korean just ain't as good as I'd like it to be. So, if you have suggestions to make those translations better, or indeed CORRECT, please go ahead and let me know. 
> 
> Edit: A couples lovelies gave me Spanish translations, so that should be better now :D Thank you!
> 
> This is part 01 of an ongoing thing. Bear with me.
> 
> This work hasn't been BETA'd, all mistakes are my own, again I apologise.

Kieth is beginning to get used to the weird planets they encounter during their missions, but this one gives him a headache. Instead of spinning east to west - or west to east, whichever, they’d been on quite a few planets that went the ‘wrong way’ according to Lance - it spins north to south, with one side permanently in the light, one permanently in the dark.

It’s unsettling, is what it is. Even more so that there are actually people - or beings, at any rate - living on the dark side as well as beings on the light side, contrary to all his Earth-born assumptions. Granted, they are rather bat-like, winged, with very pale scaled skin, apparently no body hair at all and almost useless eyes. He’d expected their skin to be thin, human-like - but no, instead they’re almost reptilian, with thick, almost opalescent, scales.

Lance, in his annoying way of getting straight to the point only when it suits him, had immediately declared them dragon-people. Keith had decided that they apparently have very different ideas of what dragons look like.

Instead of their poor eyesight, the Sirill rely on what he thinks is a form of sonar, and their writing is very like Braille, all about touch and texture. He’s run his fingers over some pages since they were picked up, contemplated the differences and similarities between this writing and all the other writings he’s encountered over the past six months. He sort of wants to ask if he can take one back to the castle for Pidge, she’d probably get a kick out of it.

He’s been trying to wrap his head around the idea of living in a permanent night time, but all he can come up with as a comparison are the arctic drills he took part in while at the garrison back home, and those had only been _weeks_ of near-darkness or near-light, not a life-time, not _permanent_.

At the very least, he’s grateful that he had that training at all, because he and Lance have been stuck here for three days so far, and while the Sirill people are welcoming and helpful, treating them both like _actual_ heroes - much to Lance’s delight - after ridding the planet of it’s Galran invaders, Keith is beginning to feel the effects of being forced to live somewhere so completely at odds with his needs, so completely and irrefutably alien.

To make matters worse, it also happens to be early-winter on this hemisphere of the planet, which apparently, on a continent bathed entirely in darkness, is pretty damn cold.

According to their hosts, it’s only going to get colder, too.

Keith steps back from the window where he’s been watching the stars rotating their oddly angled way across the sky as his brain ran away on him. According to the time piece on the wall, it’s coming up on the local equivalent of ‘bed time’ - though he is still yet to figure out how they arrange their ‘days’ on this planet, it just doesn’t seem at all possible without a sun to cross the sky. They do do it though, maybe by star positioning? Either way, it seems to be roughly the same length as a Terran day.

With a sigh, he catches the edges of the blanket he’s wrapped around himself for extra warmth, tucks them together a little more securely. He’s already wearing four layers of Sirrillian clothing on top of his usual black t-shirt and jeans, but even with the blanket it just doesn’t feel like enough. His toes are cold.

The year spent living alone in the desert had prepared him somewhat for the long, lonely months spent on-board the castle ship, had even somewhat prepared him for the hardships of their missions. But even the cold desert nights had been nothing compared to this. Even wrapped up as he is, even inside the lightly heated living quarters of their Sirillian hosts, his breath mists the air and the windows are frosted on both sides.

The Sirrillian’s are a very hardy people; as far as he can tell this winter is nothing to them, they’re used to it, and he’s seen more than a few of them wandering around in sleeveless tops and thin breeches. The very thought makes him shiver. With a huff that clouds out around him, he decides to go and find Lance, to see if he’s faring any better.

Lance, when Keith finds him, is _not_ faring better.

Keith snorts at the sight that greets him in their borrowed room. He leans against the door jam to better take in the way his team mate is studiously attempting to make some sort of nest out of every piece of bedding, blanket and even bundle of clothing he’s acquired, right in the middle of the room.

Lance looks up distractedly, “Oh good, stop staring, get those cushions and sling’em over, man.”

With another snort and a small smile, Keith closes the door against the cold air and does as directed, grabbing the cushions from the backless sofa-like thing in the corner of the room and dropping them in the middle of the nest. He looks over at the two beds, finding them both completely stripped, even of their mattresses. He frowns as Lance grabs the cushions and rearranges the nest a little.

“Lance. You’ve stripped _everything_...Where am I sleeping?”

Lance finally stops messing with the pile and stands up, slinging his own thick blanket back over himself properly - and Keith still finds it strange to see Lance swaddled head to toe in so many layers, the hood of his jacket pulled up, swathing his sharp features in even more shadows than the barely-there light the Sirrillian’s provided them with already produces. In fact, it looks like Lance is wearing even more layers than Keith. He guesses the castle just doesn’t get that cold, the environmental controls set at a comfortable level for the few inhabitants, Terran and Altean both.

He’s far more used to seeing Lance running around  elegantly bare-foot, with his shirt-sleeves pushed up to display strong forearms, if he’s not in his Paladin armor or bulky jacket.

“In here, with me. It’s too damn cold to get all prissy about personal space. You can just suck it up and no-homo your way through the night, or whatever.” With that, Lance drops right into the middle of the nest and gives him an expectant look.

Keith rolls his eyes, mutters almost fondly; “바보예요.” But he pulls his boots off,  steps into the nest and sits down, discovering that the mattresses are laid out underneath everything, so at least they’re not sleeping on the actual floor. The nest is surprisingly quite comfortable.

Apparently guessing at a translation of Keith’s muttered Korean, Lance gives an indignant yelp, “I am Cuban, Keith! I am not made for cold!” He grabs up the edges of blankets as he speaks, pulling everything together, shuffling closer to Keith, arranging cushions and pillows in some idiosyncratic pattern that Keith can't decipher.

“Jesucristo, nunca he tenido tanto frío en mi puta vida - this is _ridiculous_ , man, just, get up in here and get comfy already.”

Keith ignores the muttered Spanish - obviously something about being cold, which doesn’t take much thought to figure out, anyway - and actually makes himself comfortable, shuffling closer to Lance as they both bed down under the layers. He grabs one of the many cushions and wraps his arms around it, hugging it to his chest for that little extra protection and warmth as he rolls onto his side, legs tucked up to conserve space and trap the warming air beneath the layers. Lance watches him in silence as he does this, then, once they’re settled and Keith closes his eyes, Lance speaks, voice tinged with incredulity.

“You’re not complaining?”

Keith doesn’t open his eyes, “As you said. It’s cold. This is better.”

There is a long moment of silence, and then -

“¡Dios mío!”

Keith opens his eyes and glares at Lance. “What.”

Lance grins, pulls one hand out from all the layers and points at him, “You! You think I had a good idea!”

Keith continues to glare, refusing to admit to anything.

Lance continues to grin, expression jubilant, though his ungloved hand has disappeared back beneath the layers already. “Come on, man, admit it! I had a good idea, and you approve! I can’t wait to tell Shiro, he’ll get all misty eye’d and smile - he might even pat me on the shoulder, and compliment us for ‘bonding’ -”

“닥쳐! Lance, go to sleep!” Keith growls and rolls over, facing away from Lance and his loud, obnoxious commentary, the obvious hero worship for their team leader and the man he considers his closest friend leaving a bad taste in the back of his throat.

“Hunk’ll cry, man, he’ll grab us up in one of his double bear hugs and cry, it’ll be _great_.”

Keith would roll his eyes, but they’re closed and Lance can’t see anyway, so there’s really no point. After a moment, there’s some bumping and shuffling as Lance apparently tries to get settled again.

“Pidge though, Pidge is a sassy little shit, _she’ll_ just make fun of us.” Lance’s voice picks up a hint of petulance, “See if I bring any of these awesome books back for her to play with, she’ll regret making fun of us then. Hah.”

Keith sighs. “Are you ever going to shut up?” He’s a bit surprised they both had the same thought about the books, but he doesn’t say anything.

“It’s too damn cold.”

Keith grunts. It really is.

“Just you wait, Shiro and Allura will be all pleased and stuff.”

“Lance, _seriously_ , shut up already.”

This time Lance does, and Keith stews in his own silence for a long time. Something about Lance’s need to garner Shiro’s attention drives him up the walls sometimes. Especially considering a part of him wants to shout at Lance that _he_ is right here and already paying attention. He loves Shiro in his own way, but sometimes he wishes, guiltily, that Shiro wasn’t so likeable, so easily admired. He always berates himself when he finds himself feeling that way, it’s such a ridiculous notion, comes from such a small, dark, niggling place, and he quashes it down with all his strength.

Just as he’s drifting off, despite the occasional bout of shivering, Keith is jostled back into full wakefulness as Lance shifts. He’s about to ask what’s wrong, when Lance shuffles right up against his back with a muttered apology. Fingers move against his shoulder-blades for a moment, as if Lance is looking for purchase, until they tuck under him carefully and knobbly knees tuck up close behind his own. Warm breath ghosts across the nape of his neck, penetrating through the layers and dampening the skin behind his hair. He forcefully suppresses a shiver.

Heart beating far quicker than it was, Keith waits until Lance stops moving and then simply sighs and reaches up to rearrange the pile of blankets over them both more securely.

It takes him much longer to drop off after that, heart still pounding, his back tingling where Lance is pressed against him through the eight or more layers of clothing, uncomfortably aware of every movement Lance makes in his sleep.

 _Better not get used to it_ , his traitorous brain keeps chiding him.

* * *

The castle-ship arrives the next morning, thankfully.

Shiro and Hunk bring their lions down to the surface in order to carry Red and Blue home for repairs. They stop just long enough for Keith and Lance to thank their hosts and say goodbye, before joining them side-along.

Keith opts to ride with Shiro, Lance with Hunk, and he can’t help feeling a little relieved.

They had woken up legs and arms a-tangle, faces barely inches apart, Keith apparently having turned over some time in the night. It had been toasty warm and so comfortable that Keith truly hadn't wanted to move. In fact he had almost gone back to sleep, chest warm with more than just the shared body heat,  but then Lance had come awake and squawked.

It had taken more than a bit of work to detangle from each other and the blankets without elbowing noses or kneeing delicates, the job made especially worse by the way that they couldn’t meet each other’s eyes.

Just thinking about it makes Keith flush, an uncomfortable feeling taking up residence in his belly, heat creeping up his neck, to his cheeks. Lance had hurried to the Sirillian equivalent of a bathroom without a second glance, wrapped up in his layers and his blankets more tightly than ever. Keith had watched him go in silence and then dropped his forehead to his knees with a heartfelt sigh.

He wonders what Lance is telling Hunk and grips the book he brought for Pidge so tightly his fingernails go white.

“That bad?”

Keith looks up from the book in his lap to see Shiro smiling gently at him, his eyes kind.

Keith reigns himself in with a deep, silent breath and then shrugs, “No, actually. I’m just tired, it was cold down there, we didn’t sleep well.”

Shiro doesn’t look like he believes him, not entirely, but he seems to let it drop with another smile and Keith relaxes slightly, shoulders relaxing just a little. That’s another reason he loves Shiro, he’s perceptive, and caring enough to leave Keith alone if it looks like he needs it.

After the freezing cold air of their host planet, the air on-board Black is almost stifling, for all that it’s basic Terran room temperature. Keith feels the warmth seep into his bones though, relaxing his tense muscles, warming his lungs, making him feel almost normal again.

He can't wait to get back to the castle, to get back to his own room where he can hide in solitude, or to the training room where he can work out his frustrations in the kind of demanding physical activity that he understands and leaves him actually able to sleep.

“We’re here,” Shiro says, his voice warm and steady. Keith slides to his feet, clutching the book to his chest as Black carefully sets Red down and makes her landing, then paces down the hangar to her preferred resting space.

Black settles and Keith waits politely as Shiro silently communicates with her for a moment. He tenses again when Shiro smiles secretively and looks over at him. He quirks a brow as if to ask ‘what?’ Shiro simply shakes his head. With a final pat of his human hand against Black's panelling,  Shiro nods to the exit, “OK,  let's go.”

Allura and Pidge are waiting for them, and across the hangar Lance and Hunk are also just making their exit from Yellow. Lance is making wild gestures as he talks, probably recounting their battle, and probably exaggerating in true Lance style. Keith shakes his head but holds back the smile.

“Welcome back, Paladins! I apologise that it took us so long to reach you, the Galra were tenacious in battle. Yet, we overcame them.”

Allura smiles the smile she always uses when she’s particularly happy about the outcome of a battle, and not for the first time Keith finds himself glad that she’s on their side. The princess can be quite blood thirsty, in her own way, which isn’t exactly unexpected considering what he Galra did to her people.

“It’s fine, Allura, we were well looked after,” he says as Lance joins in and gives her his own assurances.

“So how was it down there, guys?” Pidge asks excitedly, “A tidal locked planet! An inhabited one! I never thought I’d see one, it takes so long for planets to lock like that, I always thought the degenerative axis rotation would have prevented steady evolutionary development, I mean, these guys are even humanoid right? And not only sentient, but they’re fully developed civilisations on both sides!”

Allura demurely covers a smile as she watches Pidge’s enthusiasm, clearly charmed. Hunk and Shiro look as if they’ve heard the same rant a few times already and are fully willing to just let her get on with it. Lance and Keith share a look, and Keith smiles slightly at the amusement clear in Lance’s features.

Lance reaches out and ruffles Pidge’s hair just as she opens her mouth to keep talking, and she smacks at his hand with a chagrined expression, huffing in irritation. Instead of saying anything about their three day stay planetside, Lance hooks a thumb in Keith’s direction.

“Keith got you a gift,” he says with a wide grin.

All eyes turn to Keith and he coughs, then holds out the book, “Ah, here. I thought you might like one of the Sirillian books? Their writing system is interesting.”

Pidge yelps and snatches the book, her eyes huge and bright as she flips it open with eager fingers, “Thanks, Keith!”

Hunk smacks him lightly on the shoulder and grins, “Good one, she’s been disappointed she didn’t get to go down and see it for herself.”

“We can always come back to visit when everything’s done,” Shiro says, watching Pidge with a fond expression as she flicks through the book, showing the occasional page to Allura as they all head back to the living area of the castle.

“Yeah, that’d be good, and hey!” Lance turns excitedly to Shiro as they leave the hangar, “Keith liked one of my ideas! He actually said it! To my face and everything!”

Keith snorts and actually gives in to his impulse to roll his eyes, as both Hunk and Shiro look at  him assessingly. He shrugs, “It had to happen sometime?” he says with a smirk.

And Lance gets his wish; Shiro smiles warmly and clasps his shoulder with his human hand, “It’s good to hear you two are working together better.”

Hunk leans closer to Keith as Lance straightens his back, squares his shoulders and generally appears to be walking on air as they all make their way into the common room. Keith fights back to inappropriate urge to be jealous of his own closest friend as Hunk quietly asks, “What did he _actually_ do?”

Keith shrugs again, “It was freezing cold down there, he worked out a way for us to keep warmer so we could actually sleep.”

Lance flops onto the sofa in the lowered section, a loud sigh of contentment filling the room as Pidge and Allura drop into the cushions opposite him. Shiro heads for the kitchen and Keith stops in surprise as Hunk grips his shoulder.

“He’ll get there,” he says somewhat cryptically and then turns away, following Shiro into the kitchen.

Shaking his head to dispel the confusion, Keith takes one more look around the room, at his teammates and friends, pauses to take in the sight of Lance already dozing on the sofa, then turns and heads for the training room.

**Author's Note:**

> Keith: 'Idiot'  
> Lance: 'My God!'  
> Lance: 'Jesus Christ, I've never been so cold in my fucking life'  
> Keith: 'Shut up!'
> 
> Also, my V:LD tumblr: vldimisstherain - come talk to me about Voltron :D


End file.
